HUGE spike in Google trends

[grondilu]

Check this out:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=bitcoin&date=ytd


Certainly due to the slashdot article about BTC/USD parity.

[Stephen Gornick]

An even more pronounced spike is found on Wikipedia:
   http://stats.grok.se/en/201102/Bitcoin

Contributing to the buzz:

Slashdot:
  http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/02/10/189246/Online-Only-Currency-BitCoin-Reaches-Dollar-Parity

Security Now 287:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQPSwA2Itbs

Hacker News:
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2200705

Reddit:
  http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/fiern/dollar_parity_woohoo

Tim Oreilly on Twitter:
  @timoreilly  http://twitter.com/#!/timoreilly/status/36442135578279936

Even PayPal is talking about Bitcoin:
  https://www.x.com/community/ppx/devzone/blog/2011/02/12/fyi-virtual-currency-bitcoin-reaches-dollar-parity

[vanerj]

And episode #287 of Security Now http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm mentioned BitCoin...

[Mike Hearn]

Does anyone know why Russia appears to be so much more interested in Bitcoin than other countries? We even have a Russian specific subforum here.

[Binford 6100]

Does anyone know why Russia appears to be so much more interested in Bitcoin than other countries? We even have a Russian specific subforum here.

Russia has a rich history of on-line currencies, bitcoin is just another chapter in that story.
And lot of services are located in Russia that you'd rather pay for without providing your real name & personal id (via bank p.ex.)
so they might be quicker at adopting bitcoin than the rest of the world in their own interest.

[ploum]

I also like that Google Trends :
http://www.google.com/trends?q=flattr%2C+bitcoin&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

[alkor]

Interestingly most of the google queries actually come from Russia, where the trading volume in bitcoins is relatively small.

[stakhanov]

The russians are using their botnets to generate half of the coins

[ribuck]

...Russia, where the trading volume in bitcoins is relatively small.

When I was trading at Bitcoin Market (where you see the PayPal addresses of the people you trade with), all of my trades except one were to .ru addresses.